Yay! Fartleks!

I usually dread speedwork. But as my friend Lauren says, I usually do well when we have speed workouts. I think it's all a mental thing for me. I don't like competing against myself, especially when I feel (like I have lately) that my workouts are less than ideal.

Last night we did Fartleks around the 6-mile loop of the park. My stomach was giving me problems, so I was not looking forward to the speedy parts of the workout. BUT, it was one of the first genuinely nice nights to run too, so I guess it all evens out.

Our warmup was an "easy" mile. (I use quotations for easy because it included Cat Hill.) For this, I averaged a 9:07 pace. As Lauren and I were approaching 90th street for the first interval I was getting a feeling of dread in my stomach. I told her it was kind of like how you feel when you are going up the hill on a roller coaster. Dread, dread, dread.

But I actually ended up feeling pretty fast. I guess I was, because my average pace for that .75 mile was 7:15/mi. But that one was flat. The next one was going to include Harlem Hill though. I was NOT going to keep that pace for sure.

For the next .5 miles I slowed it down to a 9:36. It actually felt like a nice comfortable pace.

On Harlem Hill I said goodbye to Lauren (she is a super speedster up the hills, and I am probably on of the slowest Advanced runners when it comes to hills). I was glad to catch her by our next slow place at West 90th Street though, because I like to chat on easy runs. For the Harlem Hill section, which was 1.25 miles I averaged an 8:15. Wow! Impressive! I felt like I was doing about a 10 minute mile.

We slowed the next portion (.7 miles) down to a 9:27 pace. But both of us felt like it was still pretty fast. We both stopped at the drinking fountain on the Bridal Path. It might have been nice and cool out, but I was still sweating like crazy.

The last portion (1.32 miles) was supposed to be our hardest. It was definitely the longest of the intervals and included the dreaded lower loop. According to Coach Steve, if we ran the rest of the workout correctly, we would have to dig deep for this last interval and would have a significant amount of lactic acid buildup. I started out hard and strong, but not what I would consider "fast". I felt that this was the only way that I could make it through that last part. I ended up averaging a 7:55 mi, which made me very happy!

I slowed my pace waaaaay down and finished the last .45 miles at a nice comfortable 9:43 pace.

All in all, it felt like a great workout. Now I feel like I can go on my vacation in peace :)